


to lose thee were to lose myself

by voodoochild



Category: His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman, Pro Wrestling Guerrilla, Ring of Honor, World Wrestling Entertainment
Genre: Alternate Universe - Daemons, Daemon Touching, Fat Shaming, Final Battle 2010, Injury, Kayfabe Compliant, M/M, Male Friendship, Multilingual Character, Not Kayfabe Compliant, Same-Sex Daemons, Swearing, Teen Crush, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Worldbuilding, no one deserves to have that sprung on them, this involves daemons guys there's a limit on kayfabe's integrity, yes this match deserves its own warning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-28
Updated: 2018-02-22
Packaged: 2019-03-10 09:55:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 6,675
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13499566
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/voodoochild/pseuds/voodoochild
Summary: Kevin and Sami weren't destined to be friends just because they have similar daemons, because that would be weird. Absolutely ridiculous. [Or, five times Sami and Kevin broke the human-daemon touch taboo, and didn't realize the effect they had.]





	1. Montreal, 2002

**Author's Note:**

> Large portions of this would not be possible without J.J. McGee’s/Mith's blog, [The Spectacle of Excess](http://thespectacleofexcess.com/). They write more poetically about Kevin and Sami than I’ll ever be able to, and their intense, intimate descriptions of certain matches were invaluable at helping me pinpoint certain moments I wanted to utilize.
> 
> Further extreme amounts of gratitude to Lil and Chloe, for the emotional support and listening to me cry about Zowens, multilinguistic speech, and daemons, and Vee for sending me Kevin interviews and smoothing out the French. Forgive any errors with the Arabic, I'm working off Google Translate.
> 
> Title, of course, from John Milton's Paradise Lost.

_November 2002  
Montreal, Quebec, Canada_

The morning they met Sami-and-Sharik, it was only a year after Emilien had settled as a giant panda and Kevin had just started with IWS.

They're terrified, of course. It's nothing like Rougeau's - where daemons are actually locked into a cage at ringside, like in the old carny times - and it's everything they've been dreaming of. Real matches you call in the ring. Real daemon-to-daemon contact. High-flying and flashy spots and promos that come spilling out of your heart and not some booker's pen.

So they'd been joking around with the IWS guys. If you hear enough “you're gonna match your daemon if you keep eating” jokes, you eventually either get witty or violent, and Kevin doesn't feel like hitting people for real today. Emilien had been puffing up and growling and rolling around the ring. Batting at one of the ring ropes, lying on his back and looking cross-eyed at the lights, making the boys laugh. It's what you do when you're eighteen and brand new in a company. Kevin plays off Emilien, asking how anyone could want to hurt something so damn cute, how pandas will rip your face off if they're angry, it’s going to be the best gimmick in history. 

And then a voice had broken into the conversation. French like a textbook, like a child clopping down the stairs, and Kevin finds it unbearably annoying, and still charming. It will be many, many people's reaction to Sami, so he's in good company.

"Oh! We've never met another panda daemon before! When did she settle? Does she wrestle with you? Have you been in the ring yet? Does it really throw off your equilibrium if your daemon takes a hit and you don't or vis-versa? I don't think it does, but nobody is willing to try it with me. I'm Sami, by the way, this is Sharik, yes I have a male daemon, will that be weird-?"

"Why would it be weird?" Which is Emilien, still lolling on his back, as curious as Kevin never lets himself be. Sami - and his familiar-looking furry red panda daemon - don't look angry at being cut off, more like they expect it. "I'm male. I'm also Emilien, the suddenly-silent one over there is Kevin."

A lot of wrestlers have male daemons. A lot of wrestlers are queer. This doesn't have as much commonality as everyone thinks. But Kevin has a male daemon and Kevin's figured out that he likes guys equally as much as he likes girls, and Kevin is noticing that Sami's absolutely *adorable*. The kind of adorable that makes him want to curl up and talk their faces off about video games or music and kiss Sami when he forgets to shut up. And ruffle his curly red hair and pull Sami down to suck him off and put his hands on every inch of what looks to be ghost-pale freckled skin.

(Kevin knows this last part is not going to happen, even right from the beginning. Guys like Sami do not go for guys like him. They go for scrawny punk boys who drive Daddy's extra Benz and drink cheap beer, and Kevin is really none of those things. Doesn't stop him wanting.)

But Sami's still talking, pulling off his sweatshirt to show off a worn Ramones tee and an almost-too-skinny frame.

"Oh, because many people think it's weird. My family does, but they can be old-fashioned, especially my mother. She believes we'll be alone forever, because nobody in my family has ever had a same-sex daemon. I'm sure I'm not the only not-so straight one, though, my cousin Kemel has a boyfriend we don't talk about. And the guys who trained me seemed to think it was weird too, it took me so long to convince them we could wrestle together, but then we did a combo springboard spike DDT and they liked it, so here we are."

Huh. Okay. Sami's gay, maybe. Bisexual at least. This is good, because Kevin has had enough crushes on straight guys for one lifetime.

"Are you any good?" Kevin asks, and could kick himself. Or let Emilien do it, the way his daemon is glowering at him. 

Sami's daemon - Sharik, they remind themselves - hops up to the turnbuckle, runs along the top rope and perches, looks completely natural up there. "Find out," he says, and it's funny, how the tiny red panda is the cockier one of them.

It shouldn't surprise them that Sami is a flyer in the ring, quicker than Kevin and Emilien could ever hope to be, even with their supposed prodigy status. It shouldn't, but it does, and Sami rolls under the bottom rope, fluid as anything even in cargo pants. Kevin scrambles out of his hoodie, in a singlet and tee shirt, and climbs into the ring much less gracefully.

He tells Emilien to buzz off, when his daemon's laughing echoes through their connection, but his daemon shakes his head. _They're good. I know they are, the way they move. We're going to have to be fast to keep up with them, and we're going to have to trust them more than we ever did anyone at Rougeau's. So seriously, don't trip or anything._

_You're not helping._

Wrestling is one of the riskiest businesses there is. You have to trust the other guy beyond most human comprehension, enough to get through matches without hurting yourself, your opponent, or the two daemons near the ring. Accidents happen - Owen's daemon not being properly secured at Over the Edge, Shawn brushing against Bret's daemon on the way out of Montreal, later it'll be Edge and his daemon's freak double concussion - but the absolute trust is necessary. 

Kevin has just met Sami, but he thinks he can trust him.

 _Let me worry about Sharik,_ says Emilien, and Kevin's fine with that. He needs total focus on Sami.

As soon as one of the other guys makes an obnoxious bell-ringing sound, Kevin locks up with Sami, and it's like fucking magic. It's not an entire scripted match like with Rougeau, it's just action and reaction. It's a headlock on Sami cinched in then released and Sami shot into the ropes, a quick break, front facelock on Kevin chained into an armbar, Kevin’s kick to the ribs answered with Sami’s forearm chop, Sami’s arm grabbed and reversed by Kevin into an Irish whip reversed by Sami into a corner splash. 

There's a prickling at the edge of his consciousness (because you get tunnel vision when you're in the ring, you have to, or you go a little insane) that is Emilien, grabbing at Sharik. Dodging attacks and swiping false-hard with his claws, Sharik flipping and jumping between the ring apron and the floor and Emilien's back.

It's only when Sami jumps up onto the second, then top rope and moonsaults that Kevin realizes why Sharik looks so familiar.

Sami is Stevie McFly.

The guy who'd looked better in a puffy orange vest than anyone besides Michael J. Fox should ever have a right to. The instigator of the flashing neon light in Kevin's brain that made him want more as a wrestler. The performer of the first Asai moonsault he'd ever seen live, the move that had propelled him up out of his seat and made him scream his head off with the sheer beauty of it. 

He takes the bump, but doesn't even let Sami get a one-count before they're both kipping up to their feet. Kevin armdrags Sami back down to the mat and goes for a standing senton. Sami's breath goes out of him with the impact, but there's an excited little laugh in there, and Kevin feels the same way. Another one-count, they both roll up to their feet, and stop dead because Sharik has jumped onto the top of Emilien's head, where Emilien has caught him by one paw, but Sharik's tail is wrapped around Emilien's throat.

Kevin expects Sami to break the hold. He doesn't expect Sami to place a hand on Emilien's shoulder while gently prying Sharik off. He doesn't expect the instinctive motion of his own hand, brushing against Sharik's tail.

Sami's eyes widen at the same time as his own, and Kevin's sure, he's _sure_ that Sami feels the same thing he's feeling: they're perfectly matched.


	2. Anaheim, 2004

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh god, these two had to go and nearly break up in my hometown and rip my heart out, so I kind of needed something less awful. You'd think I'd have learned, being a Steenerico fan. It's _always_ going to end badly. So here, have a new chapter, where no one is hurting each other?

_November 2004  
Anaheim, California_

The thing most people think about Sami is that he's a fucking Care Bear. That he's just as cute as Sharik, who is frequently found draped over Sami's shoulder or curled into a ball asleep in Sami's gym bag. That Sami's just sunny and happy all the time and loves his babyface gimmick and bops along to punk music. That he doesn't mind wrestling under a mask, because he's doing what he loves.

Kevin knows better. Sami's a feral child, like many of their brothers in arms.

Sami learned to wrestle for a couple hundred bucks on frozen grass, taking bumps with no mats or barrier between him and the cold ground. Sami bit and clawed and scratched his way to IWS, and never stopped once he got there. Sami isn’t gracious, Sami wants to be *seen*, and he makes the mask his own because he's brilliant and he could never, ever be less than brilliant. 

When Sami's angry, his anger burns cold and long, and more than once, Kevin and Emilien have had to physically pick up Sami and Sharik to stop them from destroying friendships or business relationships. Sami gets vicious, can be as petty as anything, and he's in a petty snit right now at the PWG guys.

"Come on! You booked us to come all the way here, we're doing this for free, and you won't let us work together?! This is unbelievable, this is so - I don't know the word, Kevin, help me out here - this is so stupid, you have the two of us, you have a free spot on the card, why don’t you just give it to us? Seriously, Kevin will tell you, my English isn’t-"

"Nah, you're doing fine," Kevin says, and Emilien looks down from where he's scaled the bleachers behind them to nod. Sami doesn't trust his own English, which he learned in school, but he trusts Kevin's, which comes from crappy American sitcoms and wrestling. Go figure.

"We can work together, there's no need to cancel the match. We just want to work together, if you let us. I don't know why you wouldn't….” Sharik uncoils from around Sami's neck, climbs up a little with his claws in Sami's hair, tail raising as he hisses, and Sami lets out a cry as Sharik's claws graze his neck. "Ow, _alafat_ , you know human hair is thinner than daemon fur, you can't just dig your claws into me the way you do Emilien. Kev, can you-?"

It's not even something Kevin thinks about, just extends his arm for Sharik to clamber up, and flips the smaller daemon into the crook of his arm. He scratches Sharik between the ears - not too hard, it'd distract Sami, but enough to soothe Sharik - and murmurs in Quebecois to him. 

"[Will you relax, huh? We're gonna have to sit on our asses and do nothing if we can't convince them to use us. Then you sat still for 7 hours on a plane for nothing.]"

Sharik bristles, still annoyed, but eventually quiets. "Yes, all right. Wake me up when you humans are done talking."

They're being stared-at, Kevin realizes. Four of the wrestler-bookers, speechless at a wrestler holding his tag-team partner's daemon. There are some promotions where they enforce the taboo - no human-to-daemon touching at all, very limited daemon-to-daemon touching - and since PWG is so counterculture, Kevin had assumed they'd be like IWS, where no one cared about the taboo so long as the show was good.

(Maybe it's an American thing. He'll also learn that Americans are weird about people speaking languages other than English and daemons doing so especially. He doesn't know how you can feel uncomfortable with Sami and Sharik absently murmuring in Arabic, how you can criticize him and Emilien for using French to call spots. At the very least, their kayfabe is impeccable.)

"Is this . . . usual?" Marc asks, his tree frog daemon hopping uncertainly from hand to hand. 

"Yeah," Kevin answers, continuing to scratch Sharik beneath his head. The little furball looks blissed out, and Sami's quieted, bouncing slightly on his heels, but not arguing anymore. "We'd be a huge draw, you know. There aren't many Americans who dual-wrestle - that's why you bring Canadians in. Me and Sami can tag, we can do singles, and we can dual-wrestle. Let us work tonight and you get to boast about a dual contest."

Marc looks more convinced, Lyon nodding, but Scott is uncertain. His crow daemon certainly looks it, feathers ruffling up, and Emilien thinks idly about cannonballing him from the bleachers just to freak them out further. Kevin would like to wrestle tonight, so he tells Emilien to knock it off. Finally, Scott nods, and Lyon scribbles out the tag match on the script. Writes in "Steen vs. Generico", and it looks . . . right. 

"Great!" Sami says, scooping Sharik out of Kevin's arms. "We're just - we need to work a new match out. We'll be in the locker room if you need us."

Emilien clambers down, letting his claws swipe a little too close to Scott's crow, and Kevin has to try not to laugh at the alarmed caw the bird lets out. He nudges against Emilien, knocks him off balance, and murmurs along the connection: _Be nice._

_They should be begging us to work for them._

Kevin rolls his eyes. _The main event is AJ Styles and Samoa Joe, fuzzbrain. We're gonna curtain jerk, and we're gonna be grateful._

_Fine, I'll play nice_ , Emilien growls, waddling along at his side, _but I make no promises about helping you hold Sami and Sharik back once someone sets them off again._

Once they reach the sweatbox - there's no A/C here, even in Southern California - and handshake their way through (yes, we're very happy to meet you and your daemon, no please don't worry about the taboo we're Canadian, thank you so much for the opportunity to work here), they collapse onto a bench by one of the windows. Sharik perches on the sill to catch what little breeze there is, Emilien digs around in Kevin's bag for one of his apples, and Kevin pulls Sami into a hug.

"Hey, you all right?"

Sami tips his head forward, buries his face in Kevin's neck and switches to French. "Why are they so stupid, Kev? The sheer idiocy is killing me, this isn't WWE, we're so much better than everyone not named AJ Styles and Samoa Joe, we’re the best thing on the card. Me and Sharik can sell everything you throw at us - maybe you should count in Spanish for some heat, they didn't say you couldn't talk. You should yell, and we'll do the package piledriver for the win, everyone always goes crazy when you and Emilien do it at the same time."

"Like fuck I'm going over," Kevin says, hands on both sides of Sami's face. Sami's eyes are really ridiculously beautiful like this, and Kevin ignores it the way he's resolved to always ignore his best friend. Because they're friends, and nothing else. "Sami, you're getting the pin. I swear to God, I'll put my own shoulders on the mat and make sure you get the count. You got us this show. You got us through the flight. You made them keep us on the card. You're going over."

"No, you're-"

"Do not make me knock your punk ass out. Then I'd have to wrestle myself, and that would look really dumb.”

Kevin cuffs Sami on the back of the head, and Sami laughs, elbows him back. 

"All right. Think I can get them to start an Ole chant?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> alafat - pest, annoyance


	3. Hartford, 2008

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Everything is Kevin-and-Sami and everything hurts, this week. Let's all wallow in still-tagging Steenerico, before everything went to hell the first time.

_June 2008  
Hartford, Connecticut_

It’s supposed to be their night.

The ROHbots are clamoring for it, the bookers have fucking decreed it, Kevin Steen and El Generico are supposed to win the Ring of Honor Tag Team Championship Tournament. They know they’re going over in the first two matches, and then the third will be called in the ring. Jimmy and Tyler are onboard with them getting the win, agree that Age of the Fall as revenge-obsessed heels will be great.

And then Kevin’s knee goes not three minutes into the first match, with Sami’s shoulder getting dislocated again for the second time in as many weeks. It’s not Shiozaki or Nigel’s fault, and Kevin would be the worst kind of hypocrite if he told them to go easy on the injuries, not when he heels it up the way he does. So the heels do what heels do, and target their opponents’ weak points. For eight minutes _straight_ , Shiozaki and Nigel work the shit out of Sami’s shoulder, and their daemons get Sharik in a stranglehold. Eight minutes, the longest of Kevin's life, because he knows what Sami sounds like when he's selling, and these cries and shouts are real. All Kevin-and-Emilien can do is watch from his corner, he’s not supposed to be able to tag in until the fourth tag from Shiozaki to Nigel.

(It’s one of the very few times Kevin is thankful for Sami’s mask, because while he can hear Sami scream in only-slightly-feigned pain, he can’t see Sami’s features contort. Can’t see the sheen of tears in Sami’s eyes.)

Except when Nigel tags in, his bulldog daemon leaves Shiozaki’s viper coiled around Sharik and lunges at Sami. The crowd howls - Ring of Honor abides by the taboo, discourages even daemon-to-daemon contact, and Nigel’s daemon has just threatened a human - and Kevin feels the tug of Emilien across the connection beelining for the other daemons.

 _Fuck the match_ , Emilien snarls, _I’m going to destroy him. Both of them._

Kevin is too busy finally getting the tag to worry about Emilien. Sami’s hand is clammy and too-cold against his, and he wastes no time getting his hands on Nigel, making him submit to a bridging scissored armbar. The crowd pops for Emilien clawing Nigel’s bulldog across the muzzle, and Kevin supposes he should have seen the chair-to-the-leg coming, but he didn’t expect it or brace for it, and now his knee is truly fucked up.

Limping backstage, dragging Sami with him and glancing back to where Sharik's riding on Emilien’s head, Kevin is greeted by Jim fucking Cornette and his hyena daemon, and Kevin’s not even able to sit down before Cornette tells him he and Sami are jobbing to Age of the Fall in the third match. No title run, no validation that they're the best, just continuing to slog through matches, putting others over and never getting anything to show for it. Kevin could scream.

Sami explodes, unsurprisingly, gets in Cornette’s face and expands upon all possible meanings of Cornette’s hard-on for Tyler and Jimmy.

(Look, Kevin doesn’t blame them. Tyler is really fucking pretty, has talent coming out his ears and his black cat daemon Bellatrix likes to tease Emilien by stealing his food. Jimmy is an adorable little weirdo, but Sami likes him a lot in fellow-weirdo-solidarity, and his Siamese cat Alfie comes up with the most hilarious promo ideas. It’s just that Cornette is booking them like they’re the second coming of the Ministry of Darkness, and that’s offensive to Kevin as a wrestling fan.)

"... you can't even make the fucking comparison, Jim! How the fuck are you gonna keep protecting them - no offense, boys - all the fucking time? They've been out there a third of the time we have, they've never held gold before, we're so over we can see Mars and you're just going to hand them the titles?!"

“Put a leash on your boyfriend, Steen,” Cornette growls.

Kevin laughs to cover the yes-boyfriend-please nerves, pulls Sami by his tights to him anyway, and snarls “you’d like that too much. Don’t worry, we’ll make Hero and Pearce look great. We’ll make the crowd absolutely loathe Black and Jacobs. We will be motherfucking professionals. But you owe us those belts.”

Sami is shaking with anger and pain against Kevin, and Sharik dives into the crook of Sami's arm. Chirps to soothe his human, and Kevin wants to do the same, but he's too busy staring down the human embodiment of a whoopie cushion they call their boss and negotiating an eventual title reign.

Cornette crosses his arms. “Five months.” 

Emilien growls, and Kevin nods. “One. Toronto.”

“Three. Boston. Do not fucking push it, Sami, I see that look.”

“I would be concerned if you didn’t, because that’d mean you’re fucking blind as well as stupid-” Sami snits, and Kevin drags him back, really does want to keep his and Sami’s jobs.

Nobody bothers them as they make their way into the locker room and the corner they’ve claimed as theirs. Sharik hisses as he dives for Sami’s gym bag, Emilien grumbling as one of the jobbers’ daemons shoves past him too hard. Kevin sort of topples onto the floor mat, his knee screaming from the chair spot, and Sami collapses, strings-cut, beside him. His shoulder is swollen, and he yanks off the mask, looking bleary-eyed.

“Shove it back into place?” he asks, and it’s not, precisely, to Kevin.

Because Emilien is the stronger of them, popped Sami’s shoulder back in last week, but that had been in their motel room, not in a locker room with half a dozen guys and daemons watching. Emilen takes Sami by the wrist and braces his paw on Sami’s shoulder, claws tucked away, and some of the guys gasp, turn away. Not all of them - Jimmy and Alfie lean in, Bryan ducks his head to say something to his goat daemon, Punk’s lizard crawls up his arm for a better look.

(Kevin can feel the heat of Sami’s skin, and he's not touching him. Could shiver himself to pieces, because now he _knows_ how soft Sami's skin is, how he groans low in his throat in relief… Kevin wants to make him make that noise again and again.)

And Tyler waits, Bellatrix in his arms, until Emilien shoves hard, gets Sami’s shoulder back in before saying “listen, guys, we won’t do the guardrail spot if you don’t want to”.

It’s a surprising offer, because that spot’s going to be a huge heat magnet for Tyler; make him look vicious and probably force Sami out of the match legitimately. Sami and Kevin look at each other, and Sami’s expression is practically mutinous. He’d planned out the spot - not doing it would hurt Sami more than the shoulder - and Kevin can tell he’s gearing up for a ten-minute lecture to Tyler about it.

“We’ll do it,” Kevin says for him, and Sami sighs, sagging against Kevin’s side. 

“ _Merci, mon coeur,_ ” Sami murmurs.

The part of Kevin that wants to wrap Sami up and never let anyone else touch him gets louder. He’s not Sami’s damn heart, he doesn’t deserve that, not when they’re talking a heel turn in a year that’ll set the entire fucking wrestling world on fire. Not when Sami gives and gives and doesn’t take anything for himself.

Later that night, he and Sami and Tyler and Jimmy will tear the house down. They’ll do the spot into the guardrail, when Sami sells the shoulder like he's been murdered. Kevin will bust out the tope con hilo and apron spots that prove he can still fly, let Jimmy and Tyler work his knee because he trusts them. The crowd will sing _ole ole ole ole_ for ten minutes straight, and straight-up lose it when Jimmy has Alfie pull the ropes away in the cheap pin attempt. There’ll be what comes damn close to a riot when Steen and Generico lose to Age of the Fall. It won't be what either Kevin or Sami want, but it'll be something to face together.

_Toujours _, Sami, Kevin thinks as he lies against Sami under the tarp, sheltering from the irate crowd. Emilien rests a paw over Sami’s heart, and Kevin’s hand settles hesitantly atop it.__

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Merci, mon coeur - thank you, my heart  
> Toujours - always
> 
> (Yes, Seth named his daemon after Bellatrix Lestrange, because he is a giant nerd, and Jimmy's IG photos with Alfie basically scream "hey, here's me and my daemon". No, I don't know why Punk has a lizard, but Bryan having a goat daemon named Josie is all due to Chloe, thank her.)


	4. New York, 2010

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh boy. So this chapter was the one that challenged me the most, because - well, what do you say about those 31 minutes of horrifying brilliance that is Final Battle 2010? Hope it turned out okay.

_December 2010  
New York, New York_

Sixteen minutes.

Kevin knows this match inside and out, had scribbled it down in a battered marble notebook exactly two years ago, and it all needed to build to this moment. Sixteen minutes into the match, after Sami endures the bladejob and being painted with Kevin’s blood, after Kevin decides to rile the crowd further and stuff Sami’s old mask down his shorts. Sixteen minutes, and then comes the single moment Kevin had been terrified to write down, to pen into being.

Kevin will pick Sharik up and hold him in front of the entire crowd. Will kiss his soft brown muzzle and pretend to choke him.

And so Kevin justifies it, when Steve and Colt react with horror. He crows about their reaction being the one he wants from the crowd, to truly obliterate Ring of Honor’s rules about the touch-taboo, to make it a true Fight Without Honor. He pretends he doesn't care about Sami - even though anyone with eyes can tell he does - pretends that he cares more about shocking the audience than hurting Sami.

Sami sees through Kevin’s bluster the way he always does. Sami understands why Kevin wants the spot: it’s the one moment of peace and goodness Kevin can give him in this feud, wrapped up in horrific trappings for the audience. One moment, just for them, of apology. Sami, broken and bloodied and exhausted, knows down to his bones that Kevin would never hurt the other half of Sami’s soul. And when that sixteen-minute mark hits, Sharik is limp with happiness in Kevin’s hands, pretending to be strangled.

_It will be worth it_ , Sharik whispers to him, _you’ll see. We trust you. Nahn alkamal._

Perfect? Sharik can’t be talking about Kevin, because Kevin is nowhere near it. His hands tremble on Sharik’s soft fur, feel the little paws pressing against his cheek and the sudden flood of pure and utter joy from Sami-and-Sharik, so overwhelming he can’t stand it. Kevin can’t look directly at Sami when he tosses Sharik away, can’t stand to see the way Sami’s pupils are blown to fuck behind the mask and how his limbs shake. Easy enough to pass off as disgust and fear, which is what he should be feeling at this kind of violation.

It’s not pleasure, because Sami isn’t Kevin and Sami doesn’t get off on every innocent touch.

And then sixteen more minutes, the masterful-if-he-says-so-himself turn, Sami getting the upper hand, getting revenge. The spike brainbuster goes bad, Kevin lying on the mat dizzy with blood loss and his shit landing, but his eyes are open enough to see Sami approach with the bloodstained chair. It's the one from Final Battle ‘09, the night he turned on Generico and made Sami bleed with the chair shot, because Kevin loves narrative bookends. Loves the grand gesture even more.

Emilien ducks in front of Kevin, both their hands and paws held up pleading, and the crowd screams. Ten precise seconds, a standoff that'll go down in history, and then Sami takes the chair shot, Emilien crumpling to the mat. Kevin eats the pin and curls up with Emilien in a pleased-miserable ball, the connection between him and his daemon blown wide open. 

They’re so proud of Sami. So fucking proud - Sami is going to stay, be Ring of Honor champion, and Kevin’s going to do six months of Cornette-mandated penance in exchange. Leave. Leave Sami. 

It’s already hurting like hell. 

Steve’s voice is quivering as he leans down, turns his back to the crowd. “Kev, Sami’s doing the mask spot. He’s coming back. Can you sit up for the go-home? Last one for a while.”

He drags himself up, holds Emilien tightly in his lap, and when a pair of black-and-white boots come into the edge of his vision, he can’t bring himself to meet Sami’s too-knowing eyes. Then knees and black tights appear, Sami kneeling down, and the crowd sucks in a collective breath as Sami runs a gentle hand over Emilien’s head. 

It’s different from every time Sami has ever touched his daemon. It’s nothing at all like the easy, casual road moments inside stuffy locker rooms or cramped hotel rooms. Lifting Emilien down from a perch because Kevin’s not close enough, or gently shifting him over on a couch to get more space.

This is _salvation_. It’s Sami reaching inside Kevin, examining his heart, and proclaiming it worthy. 

All Kevin can do is crumple into his daemon’s fur and weep, shiver in happiness and ignore the chanting crowd and the ring crew and the camera guys. Everyone but Sami-and-Sharik, who take the walk to the back like heroes. Kevin flips off the crowd and ignores the kayfabe-tweaking “thank you Steen” and “please don’t go” chants, and thanks God not a single person backstage stops him before he gets to his and Sami’s dressing room and can lock the door behind him.

“Told you - perfection,” Sami whispers from the bench, mask in his hands and blood still trickling from his eye. “You did it.”

Kevin goes to his knees, presses shaking hands to Sami’s hips. “No, _arrête s'il te plaît_ , I did nothing. You are everything. You deserve everything.”

“I don’t deserve you leaving us.” Sami’s anger is back, his hand gripping Kevin's face. Sharik is growling from where he’s curled around Emilien’s neck. “I don’t want the title if it means giving you up.”

“Six months-”

“I won’t last six _weeks_ , Kevin, my heart.”

Kevin knows Sami will, though. Knows how much stronger and better Sami is than him, how determined he is.

“Gotta,” he says weakly, and Sami makes a displeased noise, reaches for a towel to staunch the blood from Kevin’s forehead. “Can’t get to WWE if you give up and hang around losers like me.”

“If you’re giving up on our dream - _notre rêve_ -” Sami starts, and Emilien bares his teeth.

“No. But you can’t wait for us. You have to promise.”

Sharik hisses. “We won’t do that to you.”

“Promise,” comes from both halves of Kevin’s soul.

Sami bows his head in surrender, and Kevin knows, Emilien knows, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that they won’t be able to rest until they’re back beside Sami in a locker room again. 

“ _Nous promettons._ ”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nahn alkamal - we are perfection   
> Arrete s’il te plait - please stop  
> Nous promettons - we promise


	5. Detroit, 2017

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> End of the line, everyone. This has been such a joy to write, and I want to thank everyone who read, kudos'd, commented or who just was willing to take a chance on the concept.

_October 2017  
Detroit, Michigan_

Kevin-and-Emilien lie on the wreckage of the table, and it's that little detail that freaks them out most.

Kevin trusts Shane, who flies as high and falls as far as his kestrel daemon Cardea. They had meticulously planned every bit of the Cell match except for this, and Shane has never hurt anyone in his entire career. But he takes crazy risks, and Cardea had directed the referee daemons to put Emilien on the table, too, after she and Shane had knocked them off the Cell. Everyone in the arena knows that Shane will drop off the Cell, and when he does, he'll hit both man and daemon. Kevin’s supposed to be on this table, but Emilien is not, and Kevin doesn’t know how Chioda’s going to get them both to safety.

The crowd is screaming - he can sort of hear it, beyond the pain and exhaustion - and three of the referees are holding up their arms, telling Shane to stop climbing, not to do this.

 _I can't move_ , Emilien says, whimpering and curling into Kevin's side. _That spot with the ceiling chain. Too dizzy. You?_

_Back's killing me. Don't really want to chance moving, and I’m not supposed to. Shit, they're really gonna do it._

Shane's back on top of the Cell, all 30,000 of the crowd on their feet, and Kevin wonders what that impact is going to feel like. He thinks, vaguely, he can get Emilien clear if Shane drops, but he's probably going to be taking the full brunt of Shane's body. Broken ribs, definitely, internal bleeding and maybe another broken collarbone or leg if Shane's feet get him instead of the table.

 _Kevin, you have to move,_ Emilien says, more panicked. 

_No, you_ , he insists, and shoves hard. Emilien goes skidding off the table and onto the floor, miraculously past the mark of where the table-and-wrestler wreckage will be, and Kevin looks back up to see Shane cross himself and take the fall.

_Je vous salue, Marie pleine de grâce, le Seigneur est avec vous-_

No, Sami is with him. Sami with Sharik on his heels, who have jumped the barrier and raced to the table. 

"Kevin, move!" Sami screams, and while Kevin’s back protests hideously, he's able to sit up and let Sami pull him off the table and into his arms, Shane's body crashing through the table a split-second later.

Kevin lies on the floor in front of the first broken table, Sami curled half around him and his arm thrown out - hand clinging tightly to Emilien's paw. Blearily, he looks for Sharik, and finds the little panda burrowed under his shirt. His hand comes up to stroke weakly between Sharik's ears - hears “breathe breathe you both have to breathe for us you have to be okay” from Sharik - and a stunned, absolute silence from the crowd.

Oh. Oh that's right. Sami and Kevin are not in PWG or ROH right now. They're in WWE, with the strictest no-touch taboo in the entire industry, and Sami has just turned heel and obliterated said taboo on live pay-per-view.

(They've also destroyed over three and a half years of strict kayfabe. Kevin doesn't travel with Sami, doesn't acknowledge their past history beyond the storyline-mandated jealousy, has to be careful about hotel rooms and cameras. It’s the hardest thing they've ever done, but they would do much worse for the opportunity to work in WWE.)

Sami's gotten to his feet, he's backing away from Kevin and looks scared out of his mind in a way Kevin's never seen before. His back hits the Cell and it clangs, too-loud, startling Sharik out from under Kevin's shirt. Sharik scrabbles over to Sami, climbing up Sami's jeans and onto his shoulder, and Emilien barrels into Kevin's side, shivering in adrenaline-terror. They can't take their eyes off Sami-and-Sharik, _(what did you/we DO?)_ screaming along both human-daemon connections.

The medics and their daemons get Kevin and Emilien onto backboards - precautionary, for the crowd, though everyone is still stunned-silent and staring - and backstage. It's dead quiet, normally there would be wrap-up cues to give or congratulations and backslapping to share. The agents, refs, crew, wrestlers . . . even Hunter and Valerian won't look at them. Everyone's giving them the widest of berths, so it's easy to spot Sami in tears on one of the equipment crates, Sharik in his lap.

Kevin almost knocks someone over tearing himself out of the gurney straps and staggering across the room, because there's no reason to stop himself. He needs to get to Sami, needs to hold him and stop him crying. Kevin collapses onto Sami, dragging him into an embrace and wiping the tears off his stupid beautiful face.

"Sami my heart," he says, Emilien clambering up to curl his paws around Sami's arm. "My own fucking heart, you absolute gorgeous psychopath, what the hell did you go and do that for?"

"You can't think I'd have left you there, you just can't," Sami insists, still shaking. "You could have fucking died, and then what would we have done, we love you, you idiot."

" _Nous savons, nous t’aimons_ , god, ever since that Asai moonsault in the Laval armory-"

Kissing is almost an afterthought, but Sami's breath is hitching in sobs and Kevin can't bear it, so he has to press his mouth to Sami's. He tastes like spearmint gum and that dumb Lacroix stuff he likes, and Emilien's paws are running all over Sharik's fur. Kevin feels like his chest has cracked open. He hasn't so much as touched Sami in weeks, and now Sami's gone and done this and sits here in such terror that Kevin could kill the next person to interrupt them.

"ZAYN! What the goddamn hell was that?" 

Vince. Oh fuck, complete fucking hell, he can't do shit, because Vince McMahon is going to kill them. Or Brutus will. The old lion's still got claws, after all.

Kevin and Sami and their daemons break apart - it feels like something's tearing at Kevin's very soul, but they do it, Sami's fingers interlacing with Kevin's in a poor substitute. His voice is scared-high as he answers Vince.

"I - I couldn't watch it happen. I know the table was padded and I know the plan was probably to have one of the refs pull Kevin off, but I could not stand here and watch Shane hurt Kevin and Emilien. Uh, sir."

"Owens?" Vince asks, turning that gut-twisting glare onto him, and Brutus growls, claws lengthening. "Did you have anything to do with this?"

Kevin shakes his head, answers honestly. "No, sir. But you're not punishing Sami and Sharik for it."

"Oh, I'm not, am I?"

"You let me headbutt Brutus last month for some heat. How exactly is this different?"

"Maybe we weren't going to turn one of our biggest babyfaces heel when he can't hack-"

"Yes, we can." Sharik says, jumping onto Kevin's shoulder to get muzzle-to-face with Vince. "We will never be the biggest or baddest heel, that's Kevin, but we can be a heel. Book us like Shawn. Give us a live mic and let us talk. Please.”

Vince takes a step back, considering both Sami and Sharik. Slowly nods, tossing off a "we'll see" before motioning for Brutus to follow. Sami, thankfully, waits for him to be out of earshot before he breaks into another near-hysterical sob, shoving at Sharik.

"No no no no why did you go and say that to Vince? We broke the taboo, we turned when we shouldn't have-"

Kevin embraces Sami again, kissing the side of his neck and thrilling to the soft cry he hears. He breathes in Sami’s scent and it's like falling off the Cell again: terrifyingly wonderful.

“Breathe. Relax. You should have turned years ago. You’re going to be a fucking amazing heel,” he says, and Sami’s hands clutch at his shirt.

“I'm going to suck, it's going to be awful, because I freaked out like a dumb mark and Sharik had to mouth off. A heel like Shawn, where the hell do we get off?! I'm not Shawn, I'll never be Shawn-”

Kevin can't take it.

“Shut up. God, just shut up, you perfect idiot, so I can get this out. You aren't Shawn, you’re better than Shawn. And I will never, ever leave you again.”

“You can't promise that,” Sami says, voice gone faint and crackling. “ _Mahbub_ , you can’t.”

“Well, it's not like anyone's going to separate you after that display,” Bryan says from behind Kevin, Josie chewing on the sleeve of Bryan’s shirt. He tosses Kevin an ice pack for the shoulder and a heat patch for his back. “Go find a hospital or a hotel room, you're scaring the rookies.”

Normally Kevin would make a snarky comment - the goat jokes really never get old - or Sami would wheedle Bryan into hanging out, not forgetting his old road buddies, but tonight isn’t the night. Tonight is for unashamedly leaning on Sami as they grab their gear. For getting into the same rental car, driving to the same hotel, and checking into the same room. Doing all of these things openly, and it's the freest Kevin has felt since Ring of Honor.

Sami is already babbling promo ideas - why he turned, rationalization to make the change in character crystallize in his head - and Kevin can only smile and kiss Sami up against the door to the room just because he can.

This is everything they've ever wanted.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cardea - kestrel, named for the Roman goddess of wind  
> Je vous salue, Marie pleine de grâce, le Seigneur est avec vous - Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee, aka the beginning to the Catholic Ave Maria prayer  
> Valerian - mastiff, named for a flower whose root is used as a sedative  
> Brutus - lion, Roman name meaning "heavy"  
> Nous savons - we know  
> Nous t’aimons - we love you  
> Mahbub - beloved

**Author's Note:**

> Emilien - “strength/rival”, French origin. Settled as a giant panda.  
> Sharik - “one who shines”, Arabic origin. Settled as a red panda.


End file.
